Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Stevie Wonder: Spain

Last night I was scouring the archives of YouTube for a suitable tune for today’s Tasty Licks Tuesday selection. While looking for and listening to various Pat Metheny cuts, Stevie Wonder’s version of Chick Corea’s “Spain” was suggested and I clicked on it.



From his 2009 DVD “Live at Last,” Stevie and company do a rousing version of this classic Corea composition. The song begins with Victoria Theodore on keyboards with a sound of Chick Corea’s Fender Rhodes piano. She is then joined by Stevie Wonder on chromatic harmonica. It really is a nice mix.

Then the band joins into the mix and one can immediately tell that to play in Stevie Wonder’s band you have to be a stellar musician. Then one by one, in this nearly 12 minute live performance from London, each member of the band takes a verse for a solo. The band includes the following members:

  • Ryan Kilgore, tenor saxophone
  • Errol Cooney, guitar
  • Roman Johnson, keyboards – who plays like he’s playing an old monophonic synth using the pitch bend wheel.
  • Dwight Adams, trumpet
  • Kyle Bolden, guitar
  • Munyungo Jackson, timbales
  • Victoria Theodore, keyboards
  • Nathan Watts, bass
  • Fausto Cuevas, congas
  • Stevie Wonder, acoustic piano
  • Stanley Randolph, drums

Then the band finishes out this number. What a great version of this song.




2 comments:

  1. Spain - Stevie Wonder in London 2008
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnQE8bUthM0

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  2. I discovered this version when I first started working from home at the beginning of the pandemic a year and a half ago. It's been keeping me company a couple times a week since then.

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